Furnace Flat: A Western Duo by Frank Bonham

Author:Frank Bonham [Bonham, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Classics, Cowboys, Fiction, Historical, Westerns
ISBN: 9781504787581
Google: 7XIsDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B073XFPSXD
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2017-08-31T23:00:00+00:00

XV

Always dusk was the worst time for King, recalling long twilights in Wyoming or New Mexico when the whole camp took a breath and let down, and supper fragrances came with the breath of sage, and newly mounted guards turned their heads to watch the sunset. When duty was taken from you, and you pulled off your boots with a sigh. Tonight, using a cane, he walked painfully along the border of the parade ground, trying to pull the old nostalgia over his shoulders like a mantle. But it tore apart in his fingers.

For three years there had been this pressure on him. There was the corroding memory of having been wronged — disgraced — because they took another man’s word over his own. And the man who took the silver had later deserted to join the Confederacy. But only lately was there this dead weight of lost confidence. He thought: Whatever it was I had, I’ve lost it now. Maybe it’s age, the thought came. I’m not thinking things through any more. Maybe the old sword’s fallen asleep.

Two troopers approached. They peered curiously at him in the light of near dusk, then recognized him, and one saluted, and both said: “’Evening, Major.” The second man forgot to salute, and King half turned to call him back. He shrugged and let it go. Whose fault was it if the men were ignorant of military courtesy? The bind, always the bind. The things you were able to do, and the things you were supposed to do. They never balanced out. Obligations to this person and that group, but the eternal obligation to yourself — what Forson had called self-respect.

King cut at a weed growing by the path. He was sick of self-examination. He had gone barn sour like a horse — sick of being pent up, yet unwilling to go out and work. There was Harris, if he wanted to work. He could try something tonight to put the hydraulics out of action. But what if he got caught? They’d throw the book at him this time. For this town was mortgaged to the mines. It could not conceive of existence without the mine payroll, the profitable mine outfitting.

King thought of Sergeant Forson with a twist of resentment. Too young to know there were traps with jaws that never opened, ten dead-end alleys for every through street. He thought of Harris, snug in his stronghold. The humiliating recollection of the Big Bill Blair parade made him shiver. Three years ago he’d have trounced the man for such a suggestion.

King found himself near the small stone guardhouse where Riggs was being held. In the deep shadows, he could see the guard slouched against the wall with his rifle propped against the wall beside him. For some reason the man’s slackness annoyed him; it set the tone of the whole troop. King went toward him.

“Guard,” he rapped.

The man moved but did not straighten up. Standing beside the window, his back securely planted against the wall, he was, King suddenly observed, dozing.

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